Triumphs of Video Fiesta

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The end of the school year bring many things: AP tests, finals, preparing for summer, the list goes on. One Highland tradition that usually goes unnoticed: Spanish videos. Every year before school ends each of Ms. Ebert’s Spanish classes is tasked with writing, acting, and editing a short video in groups of four. What makes this assignment interesting, though, is that the video that is voted to be the best overall from among all the classes will be shown in front of the whole school at the end-of-year assembly. To many, this is not important and they only do the video to pass Spanish without a failing grade, but there are a select few that are in it to win it. These groups spent hours writing, filming, and editing to make sure their script made sense and their video was enjoyable to watch, even for people who speak no Spanish.

The tradition of Ms. Ebert’s Spanish videos has been going for upwards of ten years. But this long-lasting Highland tradition goes back even farther than that. Ms. Ebert found inspiration for this Video Fiesta from a previous German language teacher, Hare Hardy, who had started the tradition of Deutschfest in the 1980s. Ebert gained her inspiration from Hardy although he only ever showed his students’ videos in the German classes. Ebert was the first language teacher to get the winning video shown in the end of the year assembly.

Although no class stands out from the other classes in terms of work ethic and ability, there are many groups throughout all of Ms. Ebert’s classes that rank high above the rest. These few groups showed dedication to the assignment and skill in their editing. Although many videos are very good it was unclear for a long time what three groups would come out on top of the rest.

“You can tell if something is good if the classes laugh. Not just the classes they are in but the other classes as well,” said Ebert.

Although many groups could have easily been recognized as the best, the overall winner of the 2018 Video Fiesta was “Don’t Breathe” from Ebert’s spanish 2 class, edited by Michael Wallis. There thrilling crime drama kept audiences on the edge of their seats while keeping the mood light hearted at the same time. It was clear that they spent time in and out of class perfecting their video and script until it was worthy of being crowned the best.